Monday, July 8, 2013

Yesterday journalist Glenn Greenwald posted an exclusive story in Brazil's O Globo newspaper, based on the revelations of the incredibly brave ex-NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, which included this page showing slides from NSA presentations.

The page includes four maps of special interest to Australians. The first shows the location of US bases that are part of the X-KEYSTORE program:

As Fairfax journalist Phillip Dorling notes in this must read article, the four bases in Australia include "the US Australian Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs
and three Australian Signals Directorate facilities: the Shoal Bay
Receiving Station near Darwin, the Australian Defence Satellite
Communications Facility at Geraldton and the naval communications
station HMAS Harman outside Canberra."

NOTE: The NZ facility is at Waihopai near Blenheim.

The O Globo article also displays three maps which apparently show phone calls and messages gathered by the NSA's Fairview program over two days (4th & 5th March 2013). Countries with the most interceptions are shown in red, then orange, then yellow, with the least monitored nations shown in green.

US surveillance of Australia (in red) is only matched by Brazil, Colombia and Japan (perhaps some smaller nations are less visible).

NOTE: The writing on these slides is hard to read, but the first word above
looks like "Total" so perhaps this is the total over the two days?

The second and third maps show Australia in yellow, again amongst the most monitored nations on earth. Why is this so? Are we not a US ally? Why are we being massively surveilled?

NOTE: Of course the percentage of mobile phone-using people in Brazil, Japan and Australia is relatively high, but there are many others on this list who exceed our per capita rate.

Another map from the O Globo page is also worth noting. This slide is from a different NSA program called Boundless Informant, details of which were previously described here:

Boundless Informant measures US gathering of metadata. In this slide, US monitoring of Australia is still as high as the Soviet Union.

Curiously, the Guardian newspaper showed another image, where Australia appears in dark green. So if this is another daily snapshot, it does not tell us the overall level of metadata surveillance (selective editing perhaps?).

And below is a map of global submarine cables, which carry phone and Internet traffic. Note that nearly all links from Asia to USA go via US allies (and NSA surveillance Client States) Australia and Japan.

Add this to the information gathering from Pine Gap and other satellite
sites, and it is clear that a huge proportion of the NSA's
information on Asia comes via Australia. I don't think our neighbors are going to be very happy when they find out.

It's time we Australians told our government that enough is enough! The US Government is not only spying on all of us, but also using us to spy on the entire world!

A personal note: If you value this information, please support the WikiLeaks Party at the coming Australian election.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

The following text shows how the Guardian updated their story about an interview with Ecuador's President Correa after it was already widely published. Original story: http://archive.is/h10ae Updated version: http://archive.is/UoHmY

Ecuador's
president reveals travel pass was granted 'without authorisation' and says
whistleblower is now Russia's problem

Rory Carroll, The Guardian

Monday, in
Quito

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 July
1,
2013 21:27 EDT

Ecuadorian
President 11.44 AEST

Rafael Correa at the
Moncloa Palace in Madrid (AFP)

Topics:Ecuador
president Edward Snowden ? Rafael Correa

Ecuador's
president Rafael Correa said Snowden 'must be on Ecuadorean territory' to make
an asylum request. Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP

Ecuador is not
considering Edward Snowden’sSnowden's
asylum request and never intended to facilitate his flight from Hong Kong,
president Rafael Correa said as the whistleblower made a personal plea to Quito
for his case to be heard.

Snowden was Russia’sRussia's
responsibility and would have to reach Ecuadorean territory before the country
would consider any asylum request, the president said in an interview with
the Guardian on Monday.

“"Are
we responsible for getting him to Ecuador? It’sIt's
not logical. The country that has to give him a safe conduct document is Russia.”."

The president,
speaking to the Guardian at the presidential
palace in Quito, said his government did not intentionally help Snowden travel
from Hong Kong to Moscow with a temporary travel pass. “"It
was a mistake on our part,”," he
added.

Asked
if he thought the former NSA contractor would ever make it to Quito, he
replied: "Mr Snowden's situation is very complicated, but in this moment
he is in Russian territory and these are decisions for the Russian
authorities."

On
whether Correa would like to meet him, the president said: "Not
particularly. He's a very complicated person. Strictly speaking, Mr Snowden
spied for some time."

The comments clashedcontrasted
with expressions of gratitude the 30-year-old fugitive issued hours later,
before Correa’sCorrea's
views had been published.

“"I
must express my deep respect for your principles and sincere thanks for your government’sgovernment's
action in considering my request for political asylum,”,"
Snowden said, according to a letter,
written in Spanish and attributed to Snowden.

“obtained
by the Press Association news agency, based in London.

"There
are few world leaders who would risk standing for the human rights of an
individual against the most powerful government on earth, and the bravery of
Ecuador and its people is an example to the world.”

The
former NSA contractor contrasted."

Snowden
compared the silence of governments afraid of US retaliation with Ecuador’sEcuador's
help in his flight to Moscow on 22 June. A temporary Ecuadorean travel document
substituted for his cancelled US passport.

“"The
decisive action of your consul in London, Fidel Narvaez, guaranteed my rights
would be protected upon departing Hong Kong – I could never have risked travel
without that. Now, as a result, and through the continued support of your
government, I remain free and able to publish information that serves the
public interest.”."

The letter will
boost Ecuador’sEcuador's
reputation with Snowden’sSnowden's
supporters but sat awkwardly with the president’spresident's
attempt to distance Quito from the saga. Correa said Quito respected the right
of asylum and appreciated Snowden exposing the extent of US spying, but willwould
not consider an asylum request unless he made it to an Ecuadorean embassy or
the country itself – a remote possibility while he remains reportedly marooned
in Sheremetyevo airport’sairport's
transit lounge. “"He
must be on Ecuadorean territory,”," the
president said.

Earlier
on Monday, Moscow confirmed that Snowden had applied for asylum in Russia. The
Los Angeles Times said he had made similar applications to a total of 15
countries. In another statement, issued through by the campaigning website
Wikileaks, Snowden attacked President Obama for putting pressure behind on the
scens on countries to which he had petitioned for asylum.

In his
Guardian interview, Correa addedsaid
his government had not, and would not, give Snowden an authorised travel
document to extract himself from theMoscow
airport. “"The
right of asylum request is one thing but helping someone travel from one
country to another — Ecuador has never done this. ”"

He said the
temporary travel document issued by his London consul on 22 June – and publicly
disowned five days later — was a blunder.

“"It
was a mistake on our part. Look, this crisis hit us in a very vulnerable
moment. Our foreign minister was touring Asia. Our deputy foreign minister was
in the Czech Republic. Our US ambassador was in Italy.”."

Narvaez and Julian
Assange, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who
has sheltered at Ecuador’sEcuador's
London embassy for the past year to escape extradition, took matters into their
own hands because they feared Snowden risked capture, said Correa.

“ said.

"The
consul, in his desperation, probably he couldn’tcouldn't
reach the foreign minister, it was four in the morning, ...
and he issued a safe conduct document without validity, without authorisation,
without us even knowing.”

The
president said Narvaez would be “sanctioned” but that he understood the consul
and Assange acted in good faith. Quito’s appreciation for Assange had not been
damaged, he said.

."

Correa
said the consul was a "cultured" man who cited the example of
Ecuadorean diplomats in Czechoslovakia giving Jews visas in defiance of their
foreign ministry during the second world war.

"Look,
he [Assange] is in the embassy, he's a friend of the consul, and he calls him
at four in the morning to say they are going to capture Snowden. The [consul]
is desperate – 'how are we going to save the life of this man?' – and does it.

"So
I told him: OK, if you think you did the right thing, I respect your decision,
but you could not give, without authorisation, that safe conduct pass. It was
completely invalid, and he will have to accept the consequences."

Narvaez
would be "sanctioned", the president said, without elaborating.

Some
Ecuadorean diplomats have complained that Assange appeared to usurp Quito but
the president said there was no rupture. "Mr Assange continues to enjoy
our total respect and is under the protection of the Ecuadorean state."

Correa, a
standard bearer for the left in Latin America, has joined European and
other Latin Americans leaders in denouncing US espionage.

However
he softened his denunciations of the UStone
over the weekend and praised vice-president
Joe Biden for a gracious phone call, saying he would consider Washington’sWashington's
request to refuse any asylum claim from Snowden while retaining Ecuador’sEcuador's
sovereignty. Asked if he thought Snowden would ever make it to
Quito, he said he did not know.

Update 1: Most of this is just standard editorial revision, including some legal input to soften the denunciations "tone". There are significant additions, perhaps because the full transcript was not ready when rushed to press.

The heading is perhaps the most interesting change: instead of "helping Snowden by mistake", it says that "helping Snowden WAS a mistake". That is a significant difference. And in fact Correa never explicitly states it.

Does Correa really believe it was a mistake to help Snowden? He only says a mistake was made when the consul helped him. For all we know, he is secretly quite proud of his Consul's actions.

Update 2: After concerted complaints from President Correa on Twitter, the Guardian has changed it's headline yet again: "Ecuador says it blundered over Snowden travel document."

Correa also notes that he said Snowden is "in a complicated SITUATION." Guardian translated that as: "He is a complicated PERSON".

And Correa notes that while Guardian has belatedly rectified their story, all the newswires who spread these distortions around the world have not.

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